Iraqis Went to the Polls & Saddam Goes on Trial
 

So, Iraq spent Sunday going to the polls for their referendum on the new Iraqi Constitution -- I think it deserves a capitalizing. Looks like good ole Yusuf al-Iraqi is tougher than either the terrs trying to blow him up and the naysayers on these shores who have been moaning for a year and a half that this will never work.

Ha! -- looks like the constitution is going to pass, and as written.

This tends very much to vindicate the neocon idea that humans like democracy and will try it any chance they get. Being very persuaded of the worth of democracies and genuine republics myself, I'm very sympathetic to this view.

The forces of tyranny mustered about nineteen attacks total for circa 3700 polling places, and did they manage even nineteen fatalities in these? I reckon it was no coincidence we were giving them a blasting in Ramadi, and to effect, during this election weekend. Kept the other tyranno-bozos' heads down. Keep their heads well down and keep 'em bent over, I say, while we drive the SCAT bus (narsty local pun) -- until they look like a unicorn.

Meanwhile, the Iraqis, more resolute in going for democracy than all the anti-democracy dopes over here, continue their march to something better than all the Saddams of the world could offer. Hats off!

For his sins, Saddam goes on trial starting tomorrow, the nineteenth. There's rumor he might not get tried on every count that might be brought against him because in this first trial, he might get convicted, sentenced to death by hanging, and exhaust his appeals before they finish indicting and trying him on everything else. Well, maybe in due course they could do a variation on those C-4 executions of videotape fame: exhume his dessicated corpse, pack it with plenty of plastic explosive, and blast it to ions. Sic Semper Tyrannis.

The fat lady hasn't sung yet. :headshake

We have yet to see if the Taliban will let it happen.

I have heard and read that Saddam has refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the court...refused to answer questions...complains that only the presiding judge is visible...inisists on his position and authority as sovereign ruler, and its attendant immunity from prosecution, and then, almost as an afterthought, enters a plea of not guilty.

Also, this is an Iraqi court, not an international court, and it is (I think) televised, but with a 20 minute tape delay, to prevent his holding forth and communicating, rallying those outside.

I see absolutely no sense of the presumtion of innocence. Perhaps that's a quaint American judical tradition. Why not just summarily execute him?

It's interesting.

I refuse to acknowledge the ligitimacy of all comments here with the exception of this one.

And where's my headscarf? I'm not listening to anyone until I get my headscarf.

(plugs ears with fingers defiantly)

...I've got your scarf...um..... never mind.

Due to rotten weather, nobody even has the final voting results for areas outside the capitol. The known results show blatant fraud in many polling places, both sides admit it and there will be an investigation. One of Saddam's defense attorneys is Ramsay Clark, our former Attorney General, and he plans to denounce US policies with Saddam's regime which created the environment where most of the charges against him occurred. That should be enough comedy to last for the week. Oh, and they already requested a delay, naturally.

And given his pouty displays of "I'm still dictator, though nominally President, and you're all a bunch of American pogues and puppets, so I'm going to mouth off a lot, since I can't order you blown in half," a tape delay seems a good idea in one sense. Thoughtful Iraqis, however, would no doubt conclude the man's AFU in the head from too much dictator time logged were they to either read or see his rants. He seems to believe he could still rally enough Iraqis to bust him loose, and will probably continue to believe that until the moment the rope snaps taut and breaks his neck. Again, or still, he's playing the mafioso. His career more resembles that of a Mafia torpedo who rose to capo di tutti capi than a politician's.

Not the kind of guy anybody wants controlling the world's second- or third-largest share of a unique mineral and energy resource. We want ethical and altogether sane people in there. Why the f@ck anybody would object to this remains obscure to me.

Why not, indeed? Well, frankly, a fair trial and a fair hanging look better than summary execution. We (and by this I also mean at least two very large blocks of the Iraqi population) want to de-martyrize this man before we punish him. An active presumption of guilt would lead naturally to execution without a trial -- that a trial is being held, and held by Iraqis, with a thoroughly hands-off attitude from American officialdom (Ramsey Clark is in there with no connection to the American government), suggests more of a presumption of innocence than you're seeing.

:lol:
Not that it really matters in the end, but you can't seriously believe that.

I can. Why should I not? Ramsey Clark hasn't been an ambassador for -- how long?

I've worked in the Federal government, Monkey, and in the DC area to boot. That's why I don't buy conspiracy theories about the US government. In my experience, they don't have the time, let alone the inclination, for plotting.

Saying that the administration is less hands off than they're letting on hardly rises to the level of conspiracy theory.

Regardless, it's an unusual libertarian who trusts the Federal government so implicitly.

Thank you for noticing.

Hell, you already know I don't go in lockstep with Paul Ireland -- the Non-Aggression principle will be shown to be not only useless (and only likely to be in force with an expansion of gov't power in any case, to enforce it) -- and moot, as antilibertarian regimes can be relied upon to initiate the aggression in any case (But why allow them the first punch? It might be overly effective, and kill you if you're the one trying to make libertarianism in the places that need it most.), but worse than.

The Non-Aggression principle gets even worse when you note it causes people to allow something as antilibertarian as a totalitarian to exist -- in the name of Libertarianism. There seems to me something VERY wrong with that picture. I doubt I'm the only one.

Also, I simply never credit conspiracist thinking, which is the usual failing of those determined to distrust the Fed in all things. You can be strengthened against the temptations of conspiracy theory's frustrated-romantic viewpoint by reading Why People Believe Weird Things, available in softback. Conspiracy theory fails in being too complex an explanation: it attributes to malice what can be more simply explained by stupidity, either temporary or ongoing. The most recent case in point is Louis Farrakhan and the New Orleans levees. As for the other NOI leaders who've chorused Farrakhan's view -- well, they know what they need to do to keep receiving their paychecks, don't they? Quite the nest of bigots -- "You've got to be carefully taught..." -- South Pacific

Saying that the administration is less hands off than they're letting on hardly rises to the level of conspiracy theory.

I believe that will instead be the title of the textbook study of Jr.'s "reign" which history students will refer to fifty years from now. :headshake